


Cats

by KedakaiOkami



Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27724423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KedakaiOkami/pseuds/KedakaiOkami
Summary: Kai rescues a cat from an animal shelter and then Ray tells the gang a scary cat story.  ONESHOT.  This is something I came up with around 4 am on Sunday 18 November 2012.  I was inspired by my cat, Socks.  I did not make up the story about bakenekos.  I heard a story about them a few years ago and tried to retell it, though I can't remember exactly how it went.Socks passed away in October this year.  Old age.  Nineteen and a half years old.  She'd been runover in her youth and needed her tail amputated.Anyway, story was written ages ago and formerly on the festering cesspool known as FFN
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Cats

The silence in the dojo was broken by a dull thud.

“Kai, that cat you brought back from the animal shelter has about as much grace as an elephant,” Tyson commented.

“It’s not her fault she only has half a tail,” Kai defended the feline.

“What’s up with that anyway?” Daichi wondered.

“Maybe her first owners were superstitious,” Ray suggested.

“Shut up, Ray,” Kai snapped. Really what he wanted was for them all to stop talking about the cat he’d rescued, it wasn’t Ray in particular who’d annoyed him, Ray just happened to be the last one to speak. Kai had already endured several hours of teasing from Tyson and Daichi for ‘adopting’ the cat in the first place.

“What does superstition have to do with a cat’s tail?” Daichi asked.

“You don’t know?” Ray asked and looked around at the others. Tyson shrugged, Max seemed interested, Kai appeared to have had a change of mind on whether or not they discuss it and Kenny looked worried. Ray smiled at that, “I see at least one of you know about it.”

“Know what?” Hilary asked, walking in with a box of cat toys.

“Ray’s about to tell them all a story,” Kai answered with a somewhat darkly amused smirk. “About cats.”

“Ooh, count me in,” Hilary responded, taking out a catnip mouse and throwing it to Kai’s new cat before sitting down comfortably.

“Hang on,” Kai interrupted before Ray could even make a sound. He stood up and moved to turn off the light in the dojo before lighting a candle which he sat in the middle of the group. “Okay. Now you can start,” he told Ray. There was a small amount of snickering between the pair and Kenny let out a whimper before silence reigned.

“Okay,” Ray began and all eyed focussed on him. “This is what I heard; a long time ago, there was a man and woman in a rural village in Japan who had a cat which had lived with them for a number of years. One day the cat went missing and the man was concerned because his wife loved the cat and he knew losing it would upset her. A strange noise came from his wife’s chamber, but she forbade him from entering it. He began to notice other strange things. Nothing particularly stood out, but his wife just didn’t seem the same. She’d become very secretive and he couldn’t help but become curious. So he headed out for work like he normally would, but then snuck back in to secretly watch his wife in her chamber while she was alone. To his shock he saw her change, not her clothes, her form. She transformed into the pet cat which had vanished. The man wondered where his wife was then. If the cat had taken her place, where was the woman? By investigating further, once the cat was gone, he found his wife. She’d been eaten by the cat who had taken her place.”

Ray fell silent and nobody else spoke, still gripped by the horror of the story, for several moments. There was a thud which startled most of the group, but when they saw it was only Kai’s cat playing with the catnip mouse they relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Wait a minute,” Daichi spoke up suddenly. “What’s that story got to do with cat tails?”

“The cat in the story was a bakeneko,” Kai informed him. “I can’t believe you guys didn’t know the stories. I mean Ray’s from China and he knows.”

“Bakenekos start off as normal cats,” Ray began to explain. “But when they reach a certain age, or certain size, or if their tail grows too long, they’re believed to become monsters that create ghostly fireballs, walk on their hind legs, speak like people and resurrect the dead as zombies by jumping over their corpse.”

“Can we turn the light back on now?” Kenny asked.

“Why bother?” Kai asked in return. “We’re about to turn in anyway.”

“Well, um, I think I’ll just take Dizzi and go look through some data or something. Yeah. Night guys,” Kenny responded awkwardly as he picked up his laptop and left the dojo hastily.

“Night Chief,” most of the group chorused.

“Anyway, some people believed that if the cat’s tail was never allowed to grow long then they wouldn’t become bakenekos,” Ray told Daichi.

“So someone thought that Kai’s cat would become a monster and cut off its tail?” Daichi asked.

“Her tail,” Kai corrected him. “And I guess it’s a possibility. Some people are stupid, there’s nothing you can do about that, I would know. But she may have had some accident. There’s no way to tell for sure because the shelter don’t know her history.”

“Hey, I’m hungry,” Daichi realised. “I’m gonna get a snack. I bet she’d like some milk.”

“You can’t give a cat cow’s milk!” Ray protested, sounding scandalised.

“Why not?” Daichi asked.

“It doesn’t agree with their stomachs,” Kai answered. “I put some milk specifically for cats into the cupboard next to the sink. You can give her some of that if you want. It goes in the fridge once it’s been opened.”

“Okay, come on, Mittens,” Daichi called, luring the cat out.

Tyson snorted. The cat’s name had been one of the topics used to tease Kai. “Mittens…” he snickered.

“I didn’t name her,” Kai bristled. “She won’t respond to anything else. Why don’t you go get a snack too or something?”

“Good idea,” Tyson agreed, hopping up to follow Daichi.

“Watch out for zombies!” Ray called after them, earning a dark chuckle from both Kai and Hilary.

“I think I’ll go with,” Max commented, getting up and heading after the others, though there was a bit of a mischievous look on his face.

A scream of “zombie” came from Tyson only moments later, followed immediately by “Max” in an accusing tone and the blonde’s laughter.

Ray and Hilary looked at each other and laughed before heading to their futons while Kai extinguished the candle and lay in his own.

“It’s convenient that you forgot to mention the good bakenekos,” Hilary remarked in the darkness.

“Very,” Ray agreed and Kai snorted. Tyson and Daichi didn’t need to hear about the good ones. Where would the fun be in that?


End file.
